The Arbroath Thread

[kentish]

It's difficult to be critical of any side with so many injuries. I do kinda think when your luck is out there ain't much you can do and it is starting to feel like sand slipping through an egg timer...annoyed in the sense with all players  fit there are worse teams in the championship and still 3 wins would sort it.just cannot see where they will come from though.

[Hayshead2]

17 minutes ago, TheRoundO said:

Didn’t see it. Was there anything positive to take from tonight? McKinnon? Robinson? Boruc?

Boruc looked OK. The Conditions in the 2nd half were farcical.

[1320Lichtie]

If I was a player I’m a bit of a moody defeatist c**t - I’d have thrown the towel in a long time ago - so I actually have big respect for everyone involved it must be incredibly tough and frustrating. It’s become an absolutely farcical situation, even tonight, really could’ve been postponed and abondoned, game goes ahead and within 7 minutes there’s another injury to deal with. Half time and another one - noticeable pick up in wind too. Playing 4 strikers, one at right back, 1 defender and 5 midfielders - all over the gaff and our keeper is kicking the ball out with the ball nearly blowing back to him 

 

It’s so grim 

[ecto]

17 minutes ago, lichtiekev said:

Probably sounds absolutely dramatic, and maybe premature,

But the club have a massive decision to make, do you keep throwing money away buying players and have a squad of 30+ players and still get relegated,

Or just go with what we got,

Seems like everything is against us this season and all luck has ran out and relegation is inevitable 

to survive, we need to win at least 7 of our remaining games, a tough ask
 

 

agree with this, I know the club has money, but that’s for the long term stability of the club, maybe we just have to go with what we have,  if we go down, no disaster, we rebuild and go again 

[TheRoundO]

16 minutes ago, ExiledLichtie said:

Oh, and unless Adams is somehow injured, I'm actually a bit annoyed that he was dropped.  I didn't see the game, but regardless of how well Boruc did, Adams deserved to keep his place.

Adams is a cult hero for the goal and was ok in goals last week, but he’s never played at this level and I’d be very nervous to have him a first choice goalie for months. 

Edited January 23 by TheRoundO

[ExiledLichtie]

13 minutes ago, TheRoundO said:

Adams is a cult hero for the goal and was ok in goals last week, but he’s never played at this level and I’d be very nervous to have him a first choice goalie for months. 

If I was Adams, my head would go right down.  I'd be thinking "well if I'm not going to get my chance now, when am I going to get it".  I mean maybe I'm overthinking it, but morale must be fragile at Wounded FC...

I'm just feeling really down about the whole season.  It feels like nothing has gone right since day one.

[TheRoundO]

13 minutes ago, ExiledLichtie said:

If I was Adams, my head would go right down.  I'd be thinking "well if I'm not going to get my chance now, when am I going to get it".  I mean maybe I'm overthinking it, but morale must be fragile at Wounded FC...

I'm just feeling really down about the whole season.  It feels like nothing has gone right since day one.

Ali Adams is tougher than that. He knows the score. 

[Leicesterlichtie]

If half of our current fit(??) players are running on empty, I'd be using Adams as a nuisance sub for 15-20 mins anyway just to help the team out.

[Thumper]

13 minutes ago, Leicesterlichtie said:

If half of our current fit(??) players are running on empty, I'd be using Adams as a nuisance sub for 15-20 mins anyway just to help the team out.

Like the big b*****d in The Mighty Ducks that they just bring on for fear-of-god slap shots that everyone jumps out of the way of.

[Tattie36]

As has been kind of said already there just feels like a sense of inevitability about it all. When your luck’s out, you’re luck’s out.

Don’t want to go over the Campbell stuff again but imo when the change eventually came it was too late and left us with a squad full of glaring deficiencies and imbalances. McIntyre came in and we seemed to play better immediately but a quite frankly comical injury situation means that he’s never had anything like a full squad to play with. The defensive situation is almost unbelievable - finally brings in guys to plug the gaps and cover for an already bad injury situation and they both get injured almost as soon as lacing up their boots. We now have 5 defenders on the injury list and the only “fit” one we have should be on that list too.

Add in that every other team who’s been on a run of bad form seems to magically rediscover it as soon as the whistle blows when they play us; players fighting on the pitch and throwing away a win as a consequence; stonewall penalties being ignored by referees; games being played in farcical conditions which would 99/100 times be postponed or abandoned; playing and losing to QP twice in a week just before they imploded etc etc all of these issues, in isolation, are expected and surmountable but they just seem to be piling up… and up.

I don’t believe in fate or conspiracies but this season is seriously making me doubt myself.

Never thought we’d be in a worse place this season than we were at this time last season but here we are. We can still do this but it’ll need a monumental effort, key players returning from injury very, very soon and a wee bit of luck going our way.

I think the consequences of relegation far outweigh spending a bit more money to try and stay up. I feel the hit on gate receipts, ST sales, merch sales, hospitality, sponsorship, prize money, TV money etc would be fairly catastrophic in relation to where the club is at the moment.

 

[RedLichtie86]

This season has been an utter clusterfuck.

Lack of defensive cover at the start of the season. Unbalanced squad and a manager who had seemingly lost the dressing room.

Followed by countless injuries to existing players. New manager coming in and signing some more only for more injuries to happen.

Do much has gone wrong for us this season we will look back at this and wonder what the f**k happened.

We are still in the fight to stay up. Still plenty of points up for grabs. We need our luck to change for the better and pray we can avoid a complete collapse.

A lot will ride on what we do this last week of the transfer window.

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, ecto said:

to survive, we need to win at least 7 of our remaining games, a tough ask

I don't think its quite that bad. Long term, somewhere in the 34-36 range gives you a solid chance at ninth, if not eighth.

Over the last 29 years, 35 points is the average for ninth, 39 for eighth (and 25 for tenth, but...and this is after adding back the two points deductions and recalculating the two short seasons).

As it stand, you're on track for 31, or 13 more points. That's something like 3 wins, 4 draws and 8 loses. You change a draw to a win and two loses to draws and you've suddenly got 35 points. On current track, Queen's and ICT are heading for 36, so the odds of one of them falling short are pretty decent.

6 of 29 seasons, ninth had between 27 and 29 points (that's one in five), another 5 had 30 to 33 points (that's another one in four or five). The net is 11 of 29 seasons, or 38% of them, 27-33 points was a playoff spot.

[SimonLichtie]

I'm not angry, I'm not disappointed, I'm not even particuarly annoyed at all about losing that. There's absolutely nothing the guys on the park can give further and the current situation we find ourselves in isn't anyones fault. There's no-one to blame, there's no 'how has this happened?' or 'what has gone wrong? etc. its quite simply down to an absurd injury crisis. There's not much point in saying much regarding the injuries as we all know just how ridiculous the situation really is. I guess it's best summarised by a fellow fan joking pre match about how we average two injuries a game and just getting through one without any would be great, and 20 minutes in we've got one guy already off the park and another constantly communicating with the dugout about his ongoing struggles with a niggle who eventually comes off at half time.

The thing that got me this evening was the wind. To the surprise of everyone the wind, even at it's worst, was just about playable and it would've had to have been at it's worst for a sustained period of time to have questions asked. The kicker for me was at half time, with things fairly turgid but 0-0 even the wind picks up massively for the second half and we suddenly find ourselves absolutely penned in for 45 minutes. We've had absolutely no luck this season (we had a massive amount in previous years.... what goes around comes around) and this really summed it up. I think if the wind had been as it was in the first half, we probably escape with a 0-0. As it was, within 2 minutes of the second half you could see clear as day it was just going to be us holding on for dear life through no real fault of our own.

If we had the majority of our squad available from tomorrow, I really do believe we'd have as good a chance as Queen's Park and Ayr of staying up. Unfortunately we're massively hindered at the moment and by the time we have enough Championship quality players back to full match fitness the season may be over. So many of the injuries we have currently are muscular, and everytime someone comes back or thinks they might be good to go they end up having the same recurring problems.

In terms of Saturday, by the looks/ sounds of things we're going to have 11/12 fit players and a couple fit enough to manage the bench and maybe do the last 20 of a game.... The two week break surely has to see us get 3/4 of our injured guys who have minor issues back into the squad..... surely  As things stand in my opinion we have 8/9 Championship level players available, 3/4 guys who should be rotation players/ out on loan/ bench players due to age/ stage of their career and another 11 injured with a similar ratio. More than enough players & quality of player to get results in this division, but not with 50% of them unavailable ffs....

[edinburghhonestman]

6 hours ago, SimonLichtie said:

So many of the injuries we have currently are muscular, and everytime someone comes back or thinks they might be good to go they end up having the same recurring problems.

Is there something you're doing in training that's contributing to the injuries? Or maybe more likely, something you're not doing in terms of injury prevention? I know you've got a part-time squad but maybe they should have a strength and conditioning program to do at home? Your situation seems so bad there's surely more to it than bad luck or coincidence. Best of luck going forward!

[1320Lichtie]

Our injured 11 are just missing a striker to be a really decent team

 

Gaston

 

Steele 

Little

ToB

Delaney

 

Murray

Lyon

Slater

McKenna

Dow

 

 

Subs - Norey, Walker - think I’m forgetting someone too f**k knows

 

I would have Gold, McIntosh and Bird from the players we currently have fit and available in the team above over what’s there -

 

in reality we are missing 8 starting players 

[Chippyminton]

Just now, 1320Lichtie said:

Our injured 11 are just missing a striker to be a really decent team

Gaston

Steele 

Little

ToB

Delaney

Murray

Lyon

Slater

McKenna

Dow

Subs - Norey, Walker - think I’m forgetting someone too f**k knows

I would have Gold, McIntosh and Bird from the players we currently have fit and available in the team above over what’s there -  In reality we are missing 8 starting players 

Jeez-o. I had no idea it was THAT bad for yous. Not a clue. I’ve mentioned your injury crisis in the ‘Ton vs. Lichties’ thread I started, and likened it to our situation at the beginning of the season, but the scale of yours is way, way bigger. I can also empathise with bringing in new players who immediately get injured. Desperate for defenders, we took Jack Harkness on loan from Rangers - the boy got injured in training and eventually returned to Rangers without kicking a baw. I genuinely hope that things gradually turn around and that you’ll be OK. The absolute best of luck to yous.

[Leicesterlichtie]

30 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

Our injured 11 are just missing a striker to be a really decent team

 

Gaston

 

Steele 

Little

ToB

Delaney

 

Murray

Lyon

Slater

McKenna

Dow

 

 

Subs - Norey, Walker - think I’m forgetting someone too f**k knows

 

I would have Gold, McIntosh and Bird from the players we currently have fit and available in the team above over what’s there -

You'd no be having Hammy in there? I will say from what I've seen, he seems to of lost a bit of pace since his injury. 

[1320Lichtie]

15 minutes ago, Leicesterlichtie said:

You'd no be having Hammy in there? I will say from what I've seen, he seems to of lost a bit of pace since his injury. 

Nope, he’s got a broken toe

 

If he never had a broken toe it is a different conversation but it would either be Hammy or Ricky next to Tam for me 

[Leicesterlichtie]

1 hour ago, 1320Lichtie said:

Nope, he’s got a broken toe

 

If he never had a broken toe it is a different conversation but it would either be Hammy or Ricky next to Tam for me 

Think Hammy needs to become a CH now. Seems more suited to that, than at LB now.

[Smokerson]

Agree with Simon, with everyone available or even only 1 or 2 missing we are every bit as good as QP, Ayr, Inverness and Dunfermline and whilst we'd maybe be in the bottom two come the end  I would be confident we could make a right fist of it and at least take it to the last few games.

Can't criticise McIntyre too much, his hands are tied, not sure some of his signings have been great but we simply needed bodies to fill a team, the fact that the team held out so long last night was really quite amazing (or maybe just that Ayr are poor)

Bit tough on Ali Adams, can't quite believe he was left out, but again due to another injury we have to bring in a loan and the lad is not coming in to sit on a bench.